


August Sixteenth

by ScreamQueenBee (screamqueenbee)



Series: Batdad and the Robkin [3]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Birthdays, girl raised as a boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:47:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4591794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamqueenbee/pseuds/ScreamQueenBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three birthdays for Jay Todd: sixteen, eighteen, and twenty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	August Sixteenth

August 16 was really fucking hot, and it seemed to take forever for Jason to find her way back home. She’d gone out drinking with Dick, it was her _birthday_ after all and she needed to be with family on her birthday, her older brother had said. So after a few more drinks than she should’ve had and way more than she legally should have had, she was home and stripping off clothes that had accumulated the grime and grit of the city under a heat wave.

It took a couple of tries, but she finally got the warehouse shower to stop spewing rust colored muck and got under the luke-warm water.

She shivered a little despite the disgusting heat outside and scrubbed at the thin layer of residual grossness that had collected on her skin. Jason’s body ached, but the alcohol in her blood numbed the feeling. It muted her thoughts, too, the ones about family and birthdays at the Manor. She’d only had two or three before she died, but to a kid who grew up with next to nothing, the small gatherings with Alfred and Bruce and sometimes Dick had been bright points of happiness attached to an otherwise neutral idea. 

But yet again, birthdays meant nothing. Nothing but another year she wasn’t spending in the ground.

Still…

Jason shook her head, not wanting to think about how it sort of, kind of, maybe hurt, just a little that she hadn’t heard from Bruce. The old man was sentimental enough to try and contact the prodigal on her birthday, but he was also the kind of father to give his children their space.

Oh well, the old Bat could keep his stupid sentimentality, Jason didn’t need it or want it.

She turned off the shower and dried off, putting on the shorts that hung on the towel rack and staring at her reflection in the crooked mirror.

She didn’t look or feel a year older, but then again, she’d said the same thing every years he could remember her birthday.

“Fuck it, and fuck him. What were you expecting?” Jason asked of the mirror, her face blurred in the dirty glass as she grabbed the toothbrush to rid her mouth of the taste of too-sweet alcohol. “Some tearful surprise party with family and friends? Well, buck up buttercup, cus you’re not getting that. Tonight, you’re gonna watch some Iron Chef and clean your guns. And beat up some thugs, then sleep.” She pushed himself away from the sink after rinsing her mouth and walked out of the bathroom, feeling a little more sober from the shower.

The smell of burning and wax told him that she was no longer alone… or hadn’t been alone, as now her visitor had all but disappeared. Her gun was in her hand and at the ready, sweeping from side to side as she cleared the warehouse of all presence but her own.

Jason could imagine the scene now. Bruce swooping in, cape billowing dramatically, then setting one of Alfred’s homemade cupcakes on her coffee table between her Hood and thigh holsters, waffling with indecision before dissolving back into the night. Maybe watching from a rooftop close by if she knew him.

If she had had anywhere close to Damian’s level of mimicry, Jason could’ve made Bruce tell her “happy birthday.” But that felt more than a little pathetic and creepy and Jason felt weak even entertaining the thought, so she snuffed out the candle with her fingertips and drag herself off to bed. It was unmade but the sheets felt cool against her embarrassment-heated sink. She lit the last cigarette from the pack, forcing down the painful, jagged emptiness that settled into her chest when she checked her burner to see there were no new notifications. From Bruce or anyone else.

Fuck them. She didn't need him, she didn't need any of them. 

Bruce had replaced her with others: Drake, who was the Wayne Industry Board's favorite child, Steph and Cass who had won the media over in a way that Jason never could, and Damian who Jason was sure strutted around Wayne Manor the same way he did the al Ghul compound because he was every bit royalty in both places. There was no way for Jason, who was only Park Row trash and a complete basket case, to compete.

She buried her face into the pillows, ignoring the fact that they were very quickly soaked with tears of frustration at her place in the world and then anger that she couldn't seem to rise above it.

**Author's Note:**

> Jason goes through a lot of nicknames in this universe, dependent upon her mood. Here she feels separated from the people she loves, so anything with familiarity feel wrong to her.


End file.
